Sacramento Kids | Sac Zoo

Sacramento Zoo, the heart of the Land Park neighborhood, is the place to visit for animal lovers! A small zoo at just 14 acres, it still boasts a fantastic assortment of animals of the adorable, weird and scary varieties.

During our visit to the zoo, the girls were lucky enough to watch an animal checkup through the window of the vet’s office (top right photo). They also had a lot of fun climbing the crocodile and pretending to be kangaroos!

Spying for the ever-so-cute, with it’s oversized ears, Fennic fox and the odd-looking, termite-eating aardvark (I’d never even heard of an aardvark before it arrived at the zoo).

Watching the sleepy lion cubs, discovering how large a snow leopard’s feet are and feeling the difference between the different wild cat coats.

Did you know you can get right up close to that long, purple, slimy-looking giraffe tongue?! Come at feeding time and you can feed the giraffes (or rather you can feed Chifu, the greedy male Massai giraffe who won’t ever let his mates have a chance at the feeding deck).

The zoo now has a young river otter named Kai. This funny otter likes to lick the condensation off the glass walls of her enclosure. It sure is funny to watch that open mouth smooshed up against the glass as her tongue gives it a thorough cleaning! (Go scroll through my Instagram if you want to see a funny snapshot of Kai licking the glass!)

Don’t forget to take a ride on the train, climb Mt. Kilamanjaro or have a spin on one of the many exotic carousel animals (a favorite around here is the dung beetle, where you have the pleasure of sitting atop the insect’s giant pile of poo).

Before you finish your visit, make sure you stop off in the reptile house to see all the different lizards, snakes and frogs.